Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Southeast European History

Robert Lučić

Foto
Name
Robert Lučić
Email
lucic (at) zzf-pdm.de

Homepages:

 

Project:

War and Peace in Socialism

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The Yugoslav People´s Army and the Break-up of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia

 

The aim of my research project is to analyse how the societal role and the self-understanding of the Yugoslav People´s Army and their military staff changed during the constitutional crisis which took place in the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s in the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The main research question that will be addressed is how this institution, which was officially sworn to the communist project and was well-respected within socialist society in Yugoslavia, changed into a military-political instrument of the Serbian nationalist agenda under the leadership of Slobodan Milošević.

 

In my research project, I will distinguish three thematic clusters:

  1. Power and Institutions: In this cluster, I will analyse the role and the function of the Yugoslav People´s Army within the communist societal project and the socialist state-building process after the Second World War. A specific focus lies on the programmatic orders of the Communist Party and on changes which were initiated by the institutional structure of the Yugoslav People´s Army itself.

  2. Army and Society: The second thematic scope will explore the social function of the Army in Yugoslav society. Sub-items of this cluster are the socio-biographical meaning of national service, the military staff as a stratum of socialist society and the Yugoslav People´s Army as a socio-economic actor. Based on a local analysis of the Serbian town Valjevo, I will explore not only the relationship between the population and the military unit in this region but also the relevance of the Army for the local economic development of the region Valjevo.

  3. Conflict and Crisis: Finally, I will link the findings of the previous chapters with the large-scale changes taking place in Yugoslavia in the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s. I want to demonstrate how the societal role and the self-understanding of the Yugoslav People´s Army and the military staff changed during the crisis of the socialist state and the beginning of the war in Croatia in 1991.

 

This project is part of the International Research Network ´Physical Violence and State Legitimacy in Late Socialism´.

The project is implemented by the Centre for Contemporary History Potsdam (ZZF Potsdam) and funded by the Wissenschaftsgemeinschaft Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (WGL) in Germany.

Leibniz

ZZF